Israeli drug couriers jailed in Christchurch

Mar 1, 2018

Two drug couriers caught trying to smuggle 5kg of ecstasy, with a rough street value of $2 million, into New Zealand hidden in a suitcase, have today been jailed for nearly six years.

Israeli citizens Vadim Shkolnitski, a 36-year-old truck driver, and Vladimir Turovsky, a 33-year-old dive shop owner, were caught with vast quantities of the powdered drug stashed inside a Samsonite suitcase at Christchurch International Airport on 6 April last year.

They had left Europe and travelled through Singapore en route to New Zealand. But, once nabbed by NZ Customs, both men blamed each other for being behind the smuggling.